October 20, 2010

AWOL

Please forgive the lack of posting this past week or so. I was trying to get ahead and then trying to catch up. In between those two things, I was attending the Festival of Cartoon Art at Ohio State University.

The Festival at OSU is absolutely the best cartooning event ever and is coordinated by Lucy Caswell and Jenny Robb and happens every three years. There are two full days of cartoon-related seminars that feature cartoonists from all walks of this business. It's educational, it's inspiring and it's so much fun.

It's also an opportunity to catch up with cartooning friends that I only get to communicate with via the internet and the occasional phone call.

It's tough to get back to work after the high of this Festival and I'm still digesting the whole impact of the event.

Here are a few highlights:

I met the extraordinarily talented Roz Chast but didn't have much time to actually talk to her. She was coming into the restroom and I was coming out of it. I figured a quick introduction and letting her know how much I was looking forward to her presentation was sufficient considering.

Matt Groening in conversation with Tom Gammill was very fun. He brought along some clips of the Simpsons that features bit pieces of cartoonists who have been mentioned in his show...and we saw a sneak peek of an upcoming "Twilight"-ish Simpsons...very, very funny stuff!

My wonderful friend, Jan Eliot who does the strip, Stone Soup also presented at the Festival and did a terrific job. (She even snuck in a little Canadian reference to me...thanks Jan!)

Dan Piraro's (Bizarro) presentation was hilarious and he had the audience shaking with laughter from the second he opened his mouth. I bought his book, "Bizarro and Other Strange Manifestations of the Art of Dan Piraro" and got him to sign it for me. I've been reading it and it's a terrific book...lots of cartoons and personal insights.

I had a chance to spend some time with many friends...some of whom you might know...Benita Epstein, Stephanie Piro, Kim Warp, Lynn Johnston, Hilary Price, Jen Sorensen (who also had a very funny and very interesting presentation), Anne and John Hambrock, Paul Gilligan, Mike Lynch, Mark Anderson, Dan Collins, Jenny Campbell, Michael Jantze...I got to meet Bill Holbrook, Jerry Van Amerongen, Alan Gardner, Greg Cravens and Richard Thompson... *whew*...there are so many more wonderful cartoonists but it's just impossible to list them all.

I also had the opportunity to see John Read's exhibit, "One Fine Sunday in the Funny Pages", a collection of syndicated Sunday cartoon art. It was also a pleasure to actually meet John in person.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to...now it's time to get back to work!